The British weather can sometimes cause so many problems to systems
across the UK, to the point that they get so severe and cause power outages.
There were a number of power cuts at Thorpe Park in July 2018, for example,
which resulted in several visitors getting stuck on rides at the theme park. It
was the high levels of heat throughout the region which caused these. Over 15
reports of power cuts were recorded throughout Cambridgeshire around the same
time, due to lightning strikes.

There are quite a few businesses who aren’t prepared when the
British weather takes a turn for the worse and knocks out power. As an outage
can mean a lot of lost productivity though, companies may not be able to afford
to leave things to chance.

Understanding
the impact of power cuts across the UK

There has been a long list of power cuts
across the UK throughout history. You may be old enough to remember the miners’
strike in 1972, which caused major power issues – leading to a state of
emergency being declared. A more recent power event that caused power outage to
40,000 properties was the result of Storm Frank in 2015.

Here are the three most common power outages that you may witness
within the UK:

Transient fault: lasting only a
few seconds. This is a temporary fault, but power is automatically restored.

Brownout: reduction in mains
power supply that can last for a few days (e.g. lowered light levels) and cause
machinery malfunction.

Blackout: absolute power loss.
As the most severe case of power outage, blackouts are often the most costly
and difficult to recover from.

It is difficult to predict which type of power cut you’re going to
encounter next. However, take note that 80% of power cuts between 2003 and 2012
were caused by weather conditions.

Why power cuts can prove problematic to your business

Energy is required by so many businesses
today in order for their employees to carry out day-to-day tasks. This means
that it is crucial to ensure operations remain consistent and don’t put a stop
to our productivity. Below, we take a look at how power cuts can actually harm
a business.

Data can be lost whether a power cut is severe and long-lasting, or
just results in a slight delay being recorded. If this is the case, this could
have a profound impact on any ongoing campaigns and prove difficult for you to
meet deadlines on a range of projects and ultimately meet the requirements of a
client. Imagine if all of your work is lost due to such circumstances – you
might have to start your work from scratch.

The cost on a business because of the downtime will be varied too.
Some small businesses state that one hour of no power could cost £800, while,
believe it or not, Google lost their power in 2013 and this cost them £100,000
each minute. But, downtime could come down to several reasons. If your business
does not have access to electricity for example, employees will not be able to
communicate with customers. If you’re a business that operates as an ecommerce,
you won’t be able to monitor online sales and respond to website queries.

Wondering how to
calculate the costs of the downtime on average per hour? Here’s a general
formula: Employee cost per hour x
fraction of employees affected by the power cut x average revenue for each hour
x fraction of the revenue that was affected by the outage

Can your business really afford
to take the risk?

One business will
run differently from another, not to mention having a unique set of priorities
to focus on as well. If your company relies on computers and data, you should
look at installing an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) that will allow your
devices to run off battery power in the event of a power cut.

Internet will be
relied upon by the majority of British businesses today. Therefore, you may
struggle without connectivity during a power cut. If you set up a MiFi – which
can operate as a WiFi hotspot – your staff will be able to connect to an
ad-hoc network which can help you operate when a power cut does strike.

Teams throughout your
business need to know how to act in the event of a power outage too. Do this by
creating a team or committee that will determine the specific risks to your
business — a small IT company will have different points to consider compared
to a large factory — and then draw up a detailed process for mitigating these
risks.

The research for
this article was carried out by LPG gas tank suppliers Flogas LPG.

Featured Resources

A tough economic environment means it is difficult for the masses looking to do nothing more than be an employee. To prosper in this environment you have to be creative, innovative and willing to compete and work harder than your neighbor. I believe we're increasingly moving towards a time where more people work multiple jobs and make a living in a number of different ways - increasingly moving away from the era where a man works for a single company for an entire career. I believe in working hard to generate multiple streams of income and often discuss ways to make money online to achieve financial freedom.